My paintings originate from a direct encounter with a place. I am not interested in the landscape as a backdrop, but in the moment when light, sky, space, and experience briefly coincide. I try to hold onto that moment, knowing that it is simultaneously already disappearing. I work from observation and from the long tradition of landscape painting: capturing the landscape as generations of painters have done before me. In doing so, I feel strongly connected to the painting tradition of the North Sea coasts — artists who try to capture the changing coastal light, the open space, the wind, and the continuous movement of water and sky in paint.

Within that tradition, the concept of “Zeeuws licht” (Zeeland light) occupies an important place. Since the end of the nineteenth century, this unique coastal light has become an enduring concept within the Zeeland art tradition. Not only because of its clarity or beauty, but because of its constant change: sky, water, and atmosphere are never the same here.